World | Iran Preconditions or Not, Iran Doesn't Want to Talk to Us US misunderstanding of split personality hinders any progress By Nick McMaster Posted May 28, 2008 2:42 PM CDT Copied Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, center, reviews army's helicopters during a parade in front of the mausoleum of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, Thursday, April 17, 2008. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) Barack Obama can berate President Bush for refusing to "sit down with" Iran, and John McCain can beat up Obama for proposing to do just that, but the fact is that every administration in the past 30 years has tried talking to Iran—without preconditions—and been rejected. Including Condoleezza Rice, who worked in the White House at the time and has written a book about Iran, writes Amer Taheri in the Wall Street Journal. What the US doesn't understand is that Iran has a split personality—"Is it a country or a cause?"—and that while the former might want to negotiate, the latter, an Islamic revolution, can't. "The challenge for the US and the world is finding a way to help Iran absorb its revolutionary experience, stop being a cause, and re-emerge as a nation-state," Taheri writes. Read These Next A former NFL Pro Bowler has died at age 36. The massive AWS failure exposed a big problem with the internet. Backlash for Trump nominee who said he has 'a Nazi streak.' A man ended up dead after trying to steal from Spirit Halloween. Report an error